Hepatitis C (HCV)

#1 -- Iron and hepatitis C

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1027241&blobtype=pdf

#2 -- Iron regulates hepatitis C virus translation via stimulation of expression of translation initiation factor 3.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/422261

#3 -- Liver iron concentration and distribution in chronic hepatitis C before and after interferon treatment.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1027238

THese are medical articles and very hard to understand entirely, thank God for Wikipedia, I was able to get some knowledge from them.

High iron load generally predicts a low IFN response. However, after treatment, whether successful or not, iron stores diminish.

Also, it was suggested that a person lower iron through phlebotomy (blood letting) before treatment for a high chance of success.

I'm not suggesting that a person should strive to be anemic. I'm saying that I believe that since it has been shown that the virus uses iron among other things to replicate, that being low in iron might be beneficial.

They found in one of the articles up there that the virus will multiply 10 times, or a full log, when fed iron. This suggests to me that eating a low iron diet and staying away from iron suppl's would be a good idea, especially AFTER treatment, to keep the virus from coming back.